29
Fri, Nov
0 New Articles

In the Wheelhouse: Green-Screen Management Is Dead

Commentary
Typography
  • Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
  • Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times

Our community deserves so much better than to languish about managing our systems via the green-screen.

 

I was at the COMMON User Group Fall Conference and Expo a few weeks ago, where I presented a session called "Modernizing Systems Management with IBM Navigator for i." The overall turnout for the conference was pretty good, considering it was a fall conference and Indianapolis isn't the warmest place on Earth at the tail end of October.

 

I had a number of purposes for this session. The first was to update perceptions of IBM i administrators. While there is a time and place for the command line, the idea of managing a modern system exclusively through a text-based interface is old school.

 

The second purpose was feature education. In case you didn't know, IBM Navigator for i is IBM's strategic direction for all system administration functions of IBM i. Bar none. Period. IBM i Access for Windows didn't get a version upgrade to 7.2. It will be supported for the foreseeable future, but it won't be enhanced. I did hear, however, that it will be patched if there's a major security hole or something of that effect. We need to be using the Navigator for i interface, and we need to know what features are included, where they are, and how to use them. Also, we need to understand how Navigator works in order to recognize that it's far superior to the old thick-client Navigator included in IBM i Access for Windows.

 

My session was in a double-wide room, and I'd estimate there were about 45-50 people in attendance. A bigger turnout than I expected to be honest, so I was stoked. The first question of the day I asked everyone was, "How many of you fine people use IBM Navigator for i as your primary administrative interface for managing your systems?"

 

Zero hands went in the air.

 

The second question: "How many of you have ever used the web-based Navigator product?"

 

Maybe seven or eight hands went in the air along with a few comments:

 

"But it's so slow!"

"It doesn't have enough features!"

"I used it four or five years ago, and it just wasn't very good."

 

It was apparent these folks haven't read my content on Navigator in the past. With a show of hands, only 5% were on IBM i 6.1, 80% on 7.1 (TR6 and above), and I'd say 15% on 7.2. On those releases, the software is already running, yet my fellow administrators don't know it's there. I guess they had a sub-par experience on the far slower IBM Systems Director Navigator and didn't realize that this product is not just a rehashed, updated version. Navigator for i is a fast, modern product with an agile development cycle offering you new and useful features with every HTTP Group PTF. With that being said, I'd like to give you an idea of what I spoke about.

 

The Three Myths

In my session, I talked about three myths about IBM i that are very important for administrators to know.

 

Myth #1: IBM i doesn't have a native GUI.

 

IBM Navigator for i is a graphical user interface. It's a web application that runs on IBM i. It's native. When I hear this claim, I'm wondering if people are lamenting over a lack of a Windows or Gnome or OSX interface.

 

Myth #2: You're more productive on a green-screen.

 

This myth is easily proven false when you're talking about end users. For administrators, it gets a little different. I believe that the Navigator vs. command line argument for administrators is equal to the RDi vs. SEU/PDM argument for developers. With RDi, there is a learning curve, just like any other tool. What I hear is that it takes two to three weeks to be as productive on RDi as you'd be in SEU. After those three weeks, your productivity increases to where a move back to SEU would be a major step down. With Navigator, I'd argue it takes only two to three days in order to match your productivity on command line. Once you get used to the tool, then it becomes second nature, like any other web application. The Fast Search capability is easier to learn than figuring out what words combine to make an IBM i command. Take memory, for example. If you're an administrator who needs to tune a memory pool, then you'd probably take the IBM i command WRKSHRPOOL and adjust as need be. For a junior administrator, the words "Work with Shared Pools" probably wouldn't come across his or her brain when wanting to adjust where memory is allocated. However, the easy Fast Search gives that junior administrator the ability to type "memory" and all the commands and functions related to memory are displayed as you type. Of course, if you're an old hat and want to tune your pools, you can also type WRKSHRPOOL into Fast Search and it will bring a very similar result set back for you. It's backward-compatible for those who understand the IBM i historical command lingo and forward-compatible to help on-board the youngsters!

 

Myth #3: User perception has nothing to do with administration tools.

 

This is partly true. You could argue that if you're giving your users a GUI, then it doesn't matter what you're using to maintain the system. Maybe so. But don't tell me it's not hypocritical. "Do as I say, not as I do" doesn't work. During World War II, Lieutenant General James Gavin was a commander of the 82nd Airborne, and he placed tremendous value on his officers being the first soldiers out of the airplane. To expect people to follow your guidance you need to lead by example. This lesson can be applied anywhere. When we want people to use new tools, we must also use the equivalent.

 

I spent the next 75 minutes going over the coolness of Navigator and explaining how it blows the doors off green-screen administration. The difference between often-used green-screenslike the System Operator message queueand the graphical equivalent is subtle in display, drastic in value. One neat little feature is the ability to see who replied to a job, what value they replied with, and when they replied! You won't get that on a green-screen without some sort of customized auditing.

 

The search fields integrated into nearly every table are tremendously valuable. Imagine having to search through the history log (QHST). You need to display it out to an outfile and then search through the spooled file. Navigator allows you to search inside QHST because it's a dynamically displayed Dojo table. But hang on a second. On the DSPLOG command, you didn't get your system date format right, so you have to fiddle about on the green-screen while the Navigator alternative gives you a date/time picker so you can't mess it up. Inside your search results, you see a job that you want to check out. So you can now open another session and copy/paste the job name into a command line after you type DSPJOB. In Navigator, all the jobs are hyperlinks! You can just click the job inside QHST and you're looking at the job details. But what's even cooler is you can drill down to all parts of the job and even turn on Job Watcher in order to collect performance statistics about it too!

 

If you're a POWERHA customer, then you've got so much power with the Navigator interface. The main screen of Navigator gives you immediate status indicators of how your cluster is working, allowing you to drill down to the problem areas with precision accuracy compared to the non-intuitive green-screen interface.

 

With regards to networking, I use a lot of IP addresses on my systems because I like using standard ports for services (443 for HTTPS, etc.). I don't expect my users to type in some odd port number inside a website URL. With that in mind, CFGTCP doesn't offer me what Navigator does: the Description field on the screen where my IP interfaces are listed. On the green-screen, I need to open up every interface in order to see what the description is. This is painful if you've got 30-plus addresses like I have.

 

Setting up a new network interface is also a snap. Navigator allows you to add an IP interface via a wizard. What's really cool is the way it allows you to select a hardware resource by resource name, location, or line description. If you have a number of Ethernet cards, each with a few ports, and you care about redundancy, then the ability to pick your Ethernet resources accurately is really important. I had a bit of a heckler at this point of my session who asked, "Well, what if you don't have all your cards plugged in?" Easy. Plug all your Ethernet lines in when you cable your Power Systems server. Who wants to depend on a network team if you don't have to?

 

I could keep going about all the feature superiorities of Navigator for i. This is the kind of article that could literally go twice as long.

 

We need to get the word out about Navigator and start using it ourselves. It's worth your time. Please spread the word.

Steve Pitcher
Steve Pitcher works with iTech Solutions, an IBM Premier Business Partner. He is a specialist in IBM i and IBM Power Systems solutions since 2001. Feel free to contact him directly This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS

LATEST COMMENTS

Support MC Press Online

$

Book Reviews

Resource Center

  • SB Profound WC 5536 Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. You can find Part 1 here. In Part 2 of our free Node.js Webinar Series, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Brian will briefly discuss the different tools available, and demonstrate his preferred setup for Node development on IBM i or any platform. Attend this webinar to learn:

  • SB Profound WP 5539More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT Generic IBM announced the E1080 servers using the latest Power10 processor in September 2021. The most powerful processor from IBM to date, Power10 is designed to handle the demands of doing business in today’s high-tech atmosphere, including running cloud applications, supporting big data, and managing AI workloads. But what does Power10 mean for your data center? In this recorded webinar, IBMers Dan Sundt and Dylan Boday join IBM Power Champion Tom Huntington for a discussion on why Power10 technology is the right strategic investment if you run IBM i, AIX, or Linux. In this action-packed hour, Tom will share trends from the IBM i and AIX user communities while Dan and Dylan dive into the tech specs for key hardware, including:

  • Magic MarkTRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now!  Request Now.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericForms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericIT security is a top priority for businesses around the world, but most IBM i pros don’t know where to begin—and most cybersecurity experts don’t know IBM i. In this session, Robin Tatam explores the business impact of lax IBM i security, the top vulnerabilities putting IBM i at risk, and the steps you can take to protect your organization. If you’re looking to avoid unexpected downtime or corrupted data, you don’t want to miss this session.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericCan you trust all of your users all of the time? A typical end user receives 16 malicious emails each month, but only 17 percent of these phishing campaigns are reported to IT. Once an attack is underway, most organizations won’t discover the breach until six months later. A staggering amount of damage can occur in that time. Despite these risks, 93 percent of organizations are leaving their IBM i systems vulnerable to cybercrime. In this on-demand webinar, IBM i security experts Robin Tatam and Sandi Moore will reveal:

  • FORTRA Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAManaging messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events? Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAThe thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing. Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAFor over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks. Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:

  • LANSA Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.

  • LANSAWhen it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed. Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:

  • LANSASupply Chain is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. From raw materials for manufacturing to food supply chains, the journey from source to production to delivery to consumers is marred with inefficiencies, manual processes, shortages, recalls, counterfeits, and scandals. In this webinar, we discuss how:

  • The MC Resource Centers bring you the widest selection of white papers, trial software, and on-demand webcasts for you to choose from. >> Review the list of White Papers, Trial Software or On-Demand Webcast at the MC Press Resource Center. >> Add the items to yru Cart and complet he checkout process and submit

  • Profound Logic Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.

  • SB Profound WC 5536Join us for this hour-long webcast that will explore:

  • Fortra IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn: